Innovation is a funny thing. We are conditioned to believe that anything that is new must also be improved. I don’t believe it is any coincidence that marketing departments have realized that this verbal pairing sells. Why does it sell? It sells because we believe in progress marching on. We have an entire political party that has built their brand on being progressive because of the power of this assumption. They want to be known as progressive because they believe that they are making progress toward something better. That is of course the assumption inherent in the term progress. It is movement towards an ideal, but it is a good thing. Nobody wants to call themselves the regressive party after all because we have associated progress with something that is desirable.

I am here to tell you that much of what you know about progress is wrong. You have been fed what marketing companies want you to believe. They believe in the inevitable connection of new and improved New can certainly be improved, this is not a necessary connection. Consequently, you will soon see that progress is actually not always a good thing. There are times when progress is in fact detrimental and destructive.

First, let’s deal progress being good. This should make sense to most of us. There are times where we are in a bad situation, and we want to make progress towards a better situation. Consider modern medicine. There are so many terrible diseases that we can handle simply today but were lethal just a century ago. It is progress that we are able to help people survive. That should go without saying, and I don’t know very many people that would argue that that kind of progress is a bad thing. It is clear that progress can be good.

Also, think about American attitudes towards slavery. In 1800, slavery was considered socially acceptable by a large portion of our population. Now, it is a vast minority that are so horrendously racist. I’m not saying the problem is solved, but I think we would agree that this is a form of progress. Society’s attitude has moved in the right direction towards an ideal where racism does not exist anymore. We are far from that, but it is hard to deny that there has been progress, and it is hard to deny that that progress has been anything but good.

These types of examples probably resonate quite clearly. There are things that are bad. We desire to move towards that which is perfect. Therefore, when we move away from that which is bad towards that which is perfect, we are making progress. Maybe it hasn’t gone far enough yet, or maybe there is a lot left to do, but it is clear that progress in many situations can be a very good thing.

Therefore, I am obviously not of the belief that all progress is bad.

However, let me suggest that there is a time where progress needs to stop. There are times where progress is only useful to a certain point. As kind of a ridiculous example, we hear a lot of people talk about our planet being overpopulated. Someone may suggest that we need to not have so many children. This is not a position I advocate for, but you have probably heard these arguments which is why I am using it now.

We can make progress towards that goal, but we need to know when to stop. We need to know when our population has returned to a sustainable level. If we continue progressing towards population reduction forever, then we are going to have no people left eventually. Even for people who would argue for having fewer children, they realize that progress towards their goal of reducing population is only worthwhile up until a certain point when we have the right number.

Or, to use an even more ridiculous example, I am sitting here watching a football game as I am writing this. Each team has the stated objective to move the ball towards one end of the field. They want to make progress towards that objective, and it is good for them to make progress. However, if they kept fighting with each other after the football went over the goal line, I think that we would all say it was kind of crazy. After all, there is a point where they do not need to make any more progress, and even if they continue trying, it is useless and probably even counterproductive. They got the football to the right place, so if they continue to fight to make progress in a given direction, it really is not going to do any good.

Consequently, I hope it is clear that progress can indeed be a very good thing and often times is. However, there can be times when progress is not productive anymore. If you go beyond a certain boundary, being productive actually causes harm. It was intended to do good, but it is possible to go too far. It is almost like the old proverb that reminds us too much of a good thing is a bad thing. That is not absolutely true. However, there are times when it is totally accurate and true.

Therefore, this is the myth of progress. We are told that everything new must also be improved. We are told that innovation is always a good thing. We are told that the things that are old are not as good as the things that are new. It is irresponsible to make blanket statements like this. Progress can actually be a very bad thing particularly if it has already gone too far or if it is about to move too far. Standing still can sometimes keep you in a better position than moving forward ever could.

I am not entirely sure why this myth has been perpetuated for so long. Part of it is certainly marketing. After all, if I want to convince someone to buy into a new worldview, product, way of thinking or really anything else, half of the battle is getting them to believe that what they currently have is insufficient. Why do you need a new car? Your old one just isn’t good enough anymore. It may function perfectly fine as a car, but it is missing out on all of the new and improved features, so you are sold on the perception that you need something bigger and better.

However, I think is also an innate expectation. After all, I began this article with a few situations where progress was clearly good. There has been a lot of progress that benefited the world. Therefore, we see that success and automatically apply it to everything. After all, there are so many things that we want to fix in the world that we assume when there is one technique that works, our best practice should always just be to assume that we need more of it. In this situation, we necessarily need to be progressing towards something no matter what. The current state cannot possibly be good enough. There must be some kind of forward motion to something else.

That is where the entire argument goes off the rails. The myth of progress comes down to the fact that progress itself is not always desirable. If something is already right, there is no need to progress away from it. That seems to make intuitive sense, but we buy into the myth that the way the world is must be old-fashioned or backwards. It can’t be good because it is not new and improved.

Here’s the problem with that though. I can pick up the work of Plato from thousands of years ago and find wisdom that is just as true today as it was the day it was written down. Should I reject Plato just because it is really old? Shouldn’t we have had some progress from Plato?

Partially, yes. After all, there are plenty of things in The Republic that are wrong. I am not really a fan of creating a national myth that explains why some people have higher positions in society for example. I would say that is an example of something where we should be moving closer towards an ideal about how we treat other people.

The key difference is that I would suggest we don’t want progress simply for the sake of progress. It is not just that Plato has a particular view and that he showed them a long time ago. We do not necessarily have to move ahead from Plato’s perspective. However, we are free to do so and should do so when there is a problem and we are moving towards a better ideal.

That comes back to what I wrote earlier on slavery. We do not reject slavery simply because it was an old institution, and we are progressing to something different just for the sake of rejecting that which is old. Instead, we reject something that is wrong. We are progressing based on a vision of something better rather than simply a rejection of the way the world is.

I think that is what is missing from a lot of our political discussion today. We aren’t happy with the way the world is, and sometimes that is certainly justified. However, we say that we want to move somewhere different just for the sake of moving where we are. That is the entirely wrong approach to take towards progress. If something is wrong, we move because we want to move to something better. Movement with no direction is what often times get this into trouble. It is like the example I gave above of the football field. That football team can move in any direction it chooses, but there is only one direction that is beneficial. They need to make progress towards that goal. If they move in the wrong direction or if they continue fighting beyond the end zone thus going way beyond where they should, this kind of progress is not helpful.

That’s the problem with most modern conceptions of progress. People don’t have a principal for moving in the direction that they want to go. They just want to move somewhere, and they don’t think that the current location is ideal. Movement for the sake of movement is not what we are looking for. We are looking for movement towards a consistent principle.

To use my example of medicine again, we can understand motion towards a consistent principle. The target is to eliminate some type of deadly disease, so making progress towards that objective means finding a means of treatment.

However, I can imagine a thought experiment where the situation was really bad. People were dying from a particular disease, and that was not acceptable. Therefore, people recognized that the current situation was not acceptable. People were dying from a disease after all. They realized that something had to change. There are a variety of ways that this could be dealt with. For one thing, you could just kill everyone who had that condition. In that way, the problem would be hypothetically solved. That illness would not be relevant anymore.

I think very few of us would agree that that is the ideal situation. We would be making progress towards something, but it would not be in the right direction. In fact, it is objectively better to live with a disease than to be dead. Therefore, even though the disease is not ideal, it progress towards eliminating the disease by means of killing everyone with it is actually worse than simply staying in the current state.

I hope you understand that I am not anti-progress. I am all in favor of moving towards that which is good. However, I refuse to buy the myth that new must be married to improved. New things are not always better. Some of them are, and we should be grateful for that. There are plenty of changes that have made the world a better place. However, we cannot assume that progress is always better. There are plenty of ways to progress towards bad things. It is important for us to discern which is which.

Happy belated Hobbit Day! In commemoration of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins’ shared birthday of September 22, Middle-earth lovers from our own world celebrate this most wonderful day. I have told this story before on this website, but I was introduced to The Hobbit in fourth grade. After falling in love with that story, I was handed The Lord of the Rings, and I devoured those immediately as well.

I want to revisit them yet again today with you because these stories are incredibly important for our time. Do you ever feel hopeless with the state of the world? Do you ever feel that things are going so wrong that you might as well just surrender? The darkness seems so impenetrable that we have no chance of making a difference much less making a positive difference.

I think that we often feel that way at times. Some of you may feel that way because of our current political climate (and interestingly, I have heard that same sentiment from both sides of the aisle). Some of you may feel this way because of your social situation. Your family, which ought to be one of the most loving societal institutions, might tragically be a cause of great darkness. It could be just about anything really, but when you find yourself in this place of darkness, there is extreme pressure to lose hope. I don’t know where you have been, but I have a feeling that you can probably identify with this type of feeling.

At least for me, when I open The Lord of the Rings, the feelings that the characters have resonate with me. They experience a very difficult time. They find themselves fighting a battle that they have no chance of winning. Their entire hope is not based on actually defeating Sauron on the field of battle. They realize they can’t really do that. The numbers just don’t add up in their favor, and even with the assistance of many great heroes, any type of face-to-face combat seems futile.

Even after a most triumphant victory on the fields outside of Minas Tirith where the armies of Gondor and Rohan overcame tremendous odds, Gandalf advises that any type of march on the Black Gate is not going to do very much. “I said victory could not be achieved by arms. I still hope for victory, but not by arms. For into the midst of all these policies comes the Ring of Power, the foundation of Barad-dûr, and the hope of Sauron.”[1]

The only way that they have any type of hope to defeat evil is by sneaking past it. Gandalf explains, “His Eye is now straining towards us, blind almost to all else that is moving. So we must keep it. Therein lies all our hope.”[2] Rather than the epic collision that we would expect on the field of battle where the forces of good finally put an end to the barbarian hordes, the most significant battle at the Black Gate turns out to be nothing more than a diversion to bring about the deliverance of actual hope. Frodo needs to destroy the Ring to bring any type of hope. The result of the battle is probably going to be unfavorable, but that is largely irrelevant.

Despite the fact that there was no realistic hope to win the battle at the Gate, everyone understood that they had to nevertheless charge into that darkness. They had to continue to fight and resist hopelessness despite overwhelming odds because they were just one piece in a larger puzzle. They were one moving part, and they had to do their jobs so that the entire machine would function effectively. Gandalf explains the entire purpose of the battle this way. “We must walk open-eyed into that trap, with courage, but small hope for ourselves. For, my lords, it may well prove that we ourselves shall perish utterly in a black battle far from the living lands; so that even if Barad-dûr be thrown down, we shall not live to see a new age. But this, I deem, is our duty.”[3]

Consider it this way. The ultimate mission for all of the free people of Middle-earth is to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Frodo could not complete that mission by himself. There would have been extraordinarily limited hope if that was all that the mission entailed. However, that was not the only thing that was happening at the time. Rather, there were operations going on that would assist Frodo in the completion of that mission. Therefore, because of their commitment to the mission, even though marching on the Black Gate seemed like a rather suicidal mission, the soldiers marched. Despite their own hopelessness, they were contributing to what was actually the true hope of Middle-earth. The fight was to return Middle-earth to the ordinary as I recently argued in the fall issue of An Unexpected Journal.

We need to consider that in our own world then. Our current situation may seem hopeless, and it may be really tempting to throw in the towel. We may seem to be trying our best, giving it everything we have, and despite all of that effort, it just isn’t working out. We wonder then why it is worth continuing. We can’t help but think that everything is so bad anyway that if we stop trying, it really won’t make much of a difference.

However, we never know what impact our efforts are going to have on the larger mission. It is tempting to look at humanity as tons of people isolated with no sense of unity. However, that’s not how it really is. The hope comes from a cooperative effort of many people who do what it takes to overthrow the evil that they find themselves surrounded by.

You may say that all of this is fantasy. Really, you might like the sound of everything I have said so far. It sounds awesome to have a group of people that are willing to dive into the unknown and fight for the greater good. Even if there is no hope for their own survival, there is a higher calling and a reason to continue fighting.

That being said, you might wonder why we don't seem to see this kind of thing happening in our own world. It works in Middle-earth, but it doesn't work here. It doesn't seem like all of our own fighting against the darkness is making the type of difference that brings about the happy ending we see in The Lord of the Rings.

What strikes me as fascinating nevertheless is something that you cannot overlook. It is what makes these stories so important for our world today, and it is what I believe accounts for their popularity. Something about these stories echoes inside of us and inspires us. Yes, all of these events are taking place in a universe that is not quite the same as ours, but it feels like ours. The people act like we do. Even the languages feel authentic.

Therefore, because it feels like our world and we witness things happening in that world that seem like ours the entire way through, we want to have that hope in this world as well. We want to know that when we charge into a hopeless scenario, there is a higher purpose to continue trying to do the right thing. We want to know that even if our efforts ultimately fail, by doing that, we have still made a move in the right direction. We have perhaps helped someone else succeed or have perhaps helped make the world a better place even if we can't see the fruit of that endeavor at the time. Our courage and effort are serving a greater purpose.

Tolkien realized this. He knew that people wanted this type of resolution, and in his essay, "On Fairy Stories," he reminds us that this kind of story happened in our own world as well. We don't have to limit it only to these secondary worlds that people like Tolkien created. "The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the ‘inner consistency of reality.’ There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits."[4]

Why then would I suggest that The Lord of the Rings is so important for a world that is devoid of hope? Why is it important for us to read stories like this? It is important because it reminds us of something about our own world. It likes this fire inside of each one of us that there is something higher. It reminds us that our lives are not only our own business.

Before you suggest that I am only proposing that Christianity is nothing more that wish fulfillment, nothing could be further from the truth. All I am suggesting is that there is a human desire for hope. I don't think anyone will deny that. If that hope exists, we can attempt to find it in a variety of different ways. We might believe that our government can provide it. We might decide that our family can provide it. Again, I don't think this is controversial. Everyone puts their hope somewhere unless they are a pure and intellectually consistent nihilist, and I really don't know that I have ever met one of them.

If all of these efforts are insufficient, then these books are an inspiration to continue looking for that hope. That's why they are so important. I don't want people to descend into hopelessness. Rather, I want them to remember that there is hope, and they need to try and find it. As a Christian, I believe that when they really get down to the bottom of it, they are going to find that God's story is not only true but also fills that need. It will serve the dual purpose. Therefore, I am not suggesting that we just plug in Christianity because it is convenient. I suggest it is true, and it has the dual benefit of providing hope as well.

If it is a good thing that people fight for that which is good even against terrible odds and perhaps personal cost, they need to have that hope, and if reading The Lord of the Rings gets people back in touch with that pursuit of hope, then I think that is a good thing. That is why we need these books today.

I went to a Robin Mark concert on September 7 in North Haverhill, New Hampshire. For those of you who don’t know, Robin is a Christian songwriter and worship leader from Northern Ireland who put out his first studio album in 1990. He has been doing this for a long time, and while you may not know his name, you very well might know some of his biggest hits including “Days of Elijah,” “Shout to the North, or “Revival.” In fact, his album Revival in Belfast which came out in 1999 enjoyed a remarkable deal of success for good reason. It is an excellent album and well worth listening to if you haven’t before.

We were in a pretty intimate venue with I would say somewhere around 100 people in attendance (although I am remarkably bad at estimating things, so if anyone ever tells you I am way off, probably believe them). Robin obviously led the performance, and he had a very talented backup band comprised of people from the area. Despite the fact that I assume they had very little time for the band and Robin to rehearse together, it was an excellent performance musically.

As I was sitting there, I was reflecting on humility.

Robin himself has had a great deal of success for a long time. He has played plenty of shows larger than this one. Not many people with an international reputation would come to a small town in the middle of New Hampshire to play in a local Methodist Church.

A lot of musicians would never dream of getting on stage with people they had never practiced with before. Even with the magic of technology, it is entirely different to play with someone in person than it is to listen to a recording or anything like that. This band and backup vocalists were very good, but that is certainly a risk on his part. It is not hard to imagine a possible situation where he is stuck with a subpar supporting cast.

However, the pastor of the church, in his introduction, explained how this concert came to be. He had met Robin and thought that it would be a great idea to bring him to North Haverhill, New Hampshire. If it were me, I don’t know if I would have had the courage to ask. After all, it didn’t seem like the type of thing that would normally happen.

Robin’s response struck me. “I go where I am invited.”

It took a while to make this concert happen because of visa issues as the pastor related, but it happened eventually because of that original invitation and the willingness of someone to come and do a show where people sincerely wanted to have him.

How often does this kind of thing happen? How many people have the humility to go places and let people like me have a great experience despite the fact that it may not be full of glitz and glamour?

The answer? Not many in my experience.

It was a lesson for me, and I think it probably applies to you as well. We get wrapped up in what we think we deserve. That feeling of deserving is typically based on our prior experience.

The problem is that when we think about what we believe we deserve, we may miss out on plenty of great opportunities to serve other people. That’s what I feel happened with this particular concert. It was a great night for those of us who were there, and it gave us a good time. There are musicians out there who would never dream of doing this. We were served, and that is what I call humility.

This kind of a funny thing though because, at least for me, humility can be difficult. I kind of relate it to my work in insurance. There are some accounts that aren’t going to make me very much money and take a lot of work. They’re the ones that don’t really look attractive on the surface, but in order to create an experience for the agent, I have to serve them. Even though, like everyone else, I get excited when I hit the big accounts, I can’t just shut down and only say I am going to work on large accounts. If I did that, my agents would know that I am not in it for serving them. They would know I am in it only to help them when I want to. My service would appear to be dependent on what they do rather than simply on the fact that they are customers. They probably would not appreciate that very much.

They seem happier when I serve them and attempt to act with humility even on those days when I don’t really want to make five revisions on a $250 account. After all, it is a lot of work for very little money for the company. It may not really be the best use of my time in terms of a cost/benefit analysis. Nevertheless, I have to humble myself and help them. My job is to take care of my agents at the end of the day. I’m not perfect at that by any means (and maybe my agents will disagree and call me out on this if they ever read this), but I really do try my best. Humility is hard work.

However, it goes a step further than that at least in my business because attitude also makes a difference. We can do the right thing and do the small stuff, but if we do it with the wrong attitude, we can also ruin the experience. I can provide the service technically, but humility is more than just doing it. It is genuinely trying to do your best to get something done for someone else simply because they have value. Again, it is a lot more than just the end result. It is taking care of someone whenever with whatever. You do what you have, and you take care of people.

That really is the way we ought to be in all of our lives as Christians. We should be humble, and we should try to make a positive difference in people’s lives even when there is very little we are going to get back from it. Yes, I do get paid a commission on my small accounts, and I am sure that Robin got paid for coming to do this concert. There is technically some compensation, but I don’t think that’s the point here. It is the spirit of putting on a show that encourages other people even when it may not be in the biggest town or in front of the biggest audience. We try to make a difference wherever we are at, and we do that to try our best to bring glory to God for what we are doing

That is my best effort to communicate what I felt like at the concert the other night. I don’t know Robin personally, but it really seems to me that is the type of guy who is willing to do the small stuff to make a difference for the people who want to enjoy it. I hope that this may be some encouragement to you. It made me smile as I was there the other night.

You all know that I have written extensively about the Chronicles of Narnia on this website. They are among my favorite books, and every now and then I listen to the audiobook versions of them. Today was one of those days, and I was making my way through The Silver Chair. This is probably my second favorite Chronicle behind The Last Battle, and I was intrigued by a connection I found today to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien and his famous essay “On Fairy-Stories.”

If you have read the book, you will remember the scene where Jill, Eustace and Puddleglum overcome their fear and rescue the chained Prince Rilian from the cursed silver chair. After being held prisoner by the evil Queen of the Underworld for many years, the Prince is prepared to escape his subterranean chamber and regain his rightful spot on the throne in Narnia, but they are intercepted by the Queen herself on the way out.

Rather than start a fight, she begins to talk. Her verbal assault is on the nature of reality itself. She begins to try to convince our heroes that the world they think they are trying to return to doesn’t exist. In fact, in response to Jill, the witch explains, ““There never was any world but mine.”[1]

What makes this interesting is that the Queen is clearly part of the world. She is part of that created world which implies that she cannot be the creator of that world. Even think about C. S. Lewis as he wrote this novel. He created Underworld. Functionally, for the purposes of this argument, he could have written the stories in such a way that there never was any world beyond Underworld. He did not write the stories in that way because his stories include Narnia, the land between the worlds, our own world and a variety of other worlds that we never see but see referenced in The Magician’s Nephew. However, for purely hypothetical purposes, the creator of the world, C. S. Lewis himself in this case, could have created a story where the witch was entirely right. Those are his rights as the creator.

The Queen herself was proposing that she was indeed the creator, but she was not. She is only a sub-creator to use the language of Tolkien. She is developing a vision of reality, but she herself is embedded in the reality of Lewis. Because she is in the universe that developed in his brilliant mind, she has to play by the rules of that universe. She can of course create her own universe. That is always an option. However, we need to keep in mind what was laid out by Tolkien. He wrote, “Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality; hopes that the peculiar quality of the secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality.”[2] Her ability to be a sub-creator within the creation does not extend to the same degree that Lewis’s ability does as the ultimate creator of her world. He is the one who has the authority to make things however he wants, and as a part of his creation, she must abide by the restrictions put on her by that act of his creativity.

The Queen is playing by the rules nevertheless. She wants to run outside the boundaries and say that the world is her own. She wants it to be her own creation, but she does not have that power. That strikes me as something that Tolkien would have wanted to draw out for the to the capitalization of the word Reality. She is within her rights to create a reality, but it is not Reality. She can write a narrative, but if it does not square up with what is true about the Reality, made by the ultimate creator, then her errand is bound to be a failure. It will be exposed as a fraud because there are fundamental things that parts of creation know about that creation.

As a parallel example, think about the chaos that has captured the Internet about the theory of a flat earth. A remarkable number of people have embraced this conception, but for many of us, we scratch our heads and wonder how they can believe such things. It really doesn’t make sense because the narrative they are laying out does not seem to square up with the creation we experience. They are well within their rights to create a reality that explains why the world is actually flat but because it does not seem to line up with the world that we experience which was created by the creator, the Reality, it fails to resonate with people like me as a story of creation.

Now, you can probably think of plenty of stories that have been written that tell about a flat world. Narnia in fact may potentially be flat (there is an interesting dialogue where at least Caspian is amazed by the fact that our earth is round), but no one has a problem with people writing a fictional story about the world being flat. We don’t say that people are anti-science or willfully ignoring the evidence when they create a fictional world which portrays the hypothetical truth that there is a possible world that could be flat. It is not as if fiction is somehow constrained to only tell stories about round worlds because Reality is indeed where we occupy a round world.

The problem is in the usurpation. Sub-creators are perfectly within their rights to they create worlds. They can make up all kinds of elements of the story. Some can be just like our world, and others do not have to be. The flat earth sub-creators are, like the Queen, trying to take their role of sub-creator and elevate themselves to the level of creator. She was not the one that could define Reality in Narnia, and people in our world are not the ones who can define Reality here.

We can take this illustration far beyond Narnia, J. R. R. Tolkien or a flat earth. There are plenty of ways that we see this happen all the time in the world around us. People create stories, and they intend to put them in the spot of the great Story. We think that our own reality is truth, but we fail to realize that Reality is Truth. Trying to elevate our own sub-creative activity to the level of creator simply fails every time.

In fact, it fails in Narnia as well. Puddleglum makes his stand by saying, “Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one.”[3]

Her story does not connect to his experience in the way that Reality does. It makes her story feel inauthentic, and that is the thing about all stories told by the sub-creator. We may tell wonderful stories. The Chronicles of Narnia are excellent stories, and I enjoy them a lot. I think that they do illuminate a lot of truth, and they have made me think about the way I view my own world because of their connection to Reality.

However, even at our best, our sub-creative activities pale in comparison to the creation of the creator who wrote the entire narrative of the world into existence. We try our best, and we are inspired by the work of God, but we will never be able to approach that level. That is not meant to discourage anyone from writing. I would never intend to do that and would be somewhat hypocritical if I did. However, it is a recognition of the fact that we need to understand our place in the world as a sub-creator. We write stories within the framework of Reality, and when we try to put our story in the place of that story, our story will always fall short. An imitation always falls short of the mark, and people will always return to that which resonates with what they know, Reality.

I think they should be an encouraging note for those of us who are Christians. Yes, we understand that there are many false narratives that fly around the world today misrepresenting the way that the world truly is. However, we know who created Reality and who told the magnificent story. Sooner or later, despite all of our efforts to the contrary, we are going to realize that any story that does not resonate with that story is woefully insufficient.

I appreciate people who can explain things simply. I have a hard time doing that. I don’t know if this is a deficiency in my own ability to communicate or if it is because of my worldview. On one hand, some people are extraordinarily good at putting complicated ideas into terms that even people like myself are able to understand. It seems like it is a type of skill that I should be able to learn or at least develop. On that hand, this certainly illustrates a deficiency in my own intellectual abilities.

On the other hand, I’m not sure if, even if I made my ideas as simple as possible, I could explain very many of them without recognizing their interconnectedness. They stand on their own, but at the same time, they are dependent on conditions that are developed in other parts of my mind.

As an example, many of you will know that I like the musical Hamilton. You may ask me why I like it. The answer to that is multifaceted. I enjoy the music itself. I enjoy history in general. I enjoy that it is an element of popular culture that is encouraging people to think about history.

I could go on, but I think you take my point. All of these reasons are true. They are things that I believe about that particular musical. They stand independently, but only when they are combined do they truly express the reason that I actually like the musical Hamilton. My liking it is not based on any one of the things, but it is a combination of all of them put together.

There could be a musical that was about history and brought people to the theater to learn about history. However, I might not like it if I didn’t like the music. Similarly, there are plenty of times I like the music, but I don’t particularly like the musical itself. It is all the elements coming together that bring about this appeal for me.

Most of you probably stopped reading already, but that is the struggle I have with trying to consider things simply. I could tell you that I like Hamilton because of the music. However, that’s not the answer to the question. It is part of the answer, and it is true, but it is far from complete.

A More Substantial Example

This difficulty is only amplified when we start to talk about things beyond my taste in theater. Consider my belief in Christianity. I know that there are plenty of simple answers that can be given as to why I am a Christian.

Most basically, I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, died and rose again. That is true. However, I find that there are many more reasons why I actually am a Christian.

For example, I am a Christian because I believe in the historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. It is not just something I believe because someone told me it yesterday. Rather, I believe it is a historical event that actually happened based on the evidence we have. My first basic statement remains true, but discussing the historical reliability of the Gospel testimony takes time and adds a level of complexity to this explanation. However, it is all part of the package for me.

I am also a Christian because I believe that our worldview needs to explain why there is something rather than nothing. To take a page from Thomas Aquinas, there had to be a first cause. It makes scientific sense that our universe is a giant compilation of actions and reactions. If there is never anything to set that in motion, the entire system doesn’t make sense outside of some type of infinite regression.

There are plenty of worldviews that can agree with some type of God who started everything, and I suppose that you could even, by doing some strange mental gymnastics, affirm that Jesus died and rose again while simultaneously denying that there was any type of first cause. I don’t know how one would do that, and I may be setting up a straw man here, but I think it is hypothetically possible to affirm the historical resurrection and deny that there was a creator.

This simultaneously fits into why I am a Christian. It is another facet of the world that needs to fit into my worldview somewhere. It doesn’t necessarily comment on whether or not Jesus rose from the dead, but it does fit into the doctrines of Christianity. Rather than be my hypothetical person who denies the first cause while affirming the resurrection, I find myself to be a Christian because I affirm both of these things that are indeed a part of Christianity.

Or, to go one step further, I believe in the reality of evil in the world. I don’t know of anyone who disputes the existence of evil. Even if we don’t agree on right and wrong all the time, we all agree that there are certain things that are obviously wrong and evil. Again, this is another reason why I believe in Christianity. If Christianity did not acknowledge what is so evident in the world, then it would not be a worthwhile way of viewing the world.

So you see that my Christianity has a basic summary, but it also goes much deeper than that. It is a network of beliefs based on observations about the nature of reality. Reality is a complex thing, so it didn’t really surprise me that it takes a little bit of intellectual heavy lifting for me to explain my Christian faith. I wish I could outline that simply. I just have a very hard time doing that.

Why Complexity Is Okay

I’m afraid that this post is going to irritate some people. For Christians, like I said before, it is very true that our entire faith is based upon the fact that Jesus Christ, God’s son, died and rose again. We need to put our belief in Him to become children of God. That is very simple, and it is very true. Therefore, when I say that Christianity is complex, I worry that some people are going to say that I am adding layers to the Gospel that are not there. I am not trying to do that.

Instead, I know that people have very real questions and concerns about Christianity. They want to know why they should trust Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. They want to know how the universe began. They want to know why there is evil in the world. People build intellectual barriers, and sometimes they use them as a justification for hardening their hearts toward the call of the Holy Spirit in their lives. That is what we need to be prepared to help take down. They freely decide to reject the conviction of God based on what they think are valid questions and concerns. If we can help show the weakness of their objections to Christianity, they don’t have any shelter from God’s call. They have to then face up to the reality of a God who is calling them. They can’t hide behind questions they don’t believe can be answered if we are prepared to help answer those questions.

The only way then to be prepared for these questions is to have a deep faith. Of course, we try to make it as simple as possible. Obviously, I would like to be able to do a better job at explaining my Christian worldview in simple, direct terms. I am going to keep working on doing that because it is important. Very few people really are going to sit down with me and talk for hours about the numerous strands of evidence that I believe point towards the Christian worldview as the best explanation for reality.

That being said, there are times when we have to get deep and down to challenging topics. Reality, like I said before, is a complex thing. Many people are not going to jump on board right away and automatically affirm that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for their sins and rose again. Instead, it might take a little bit of work. We might have to start out by explaining how the universe is incredibly fine-tuned. If we are relying on pure chance, our universe is radically improbable. However, if there is a designer, it is exactly the type of universe you would expect given the perfect balance of so many constants.

You may have to start by talking about how remarkable it is that the apostles were willing to go to their graves for this mysterious rabbi from an out-of-the-way town who reportedly rose from the dead. All of them faced severe persecution for their faith which implies they really had nothing to gain and everything to lose. However, they remained true to the end. At the very least, that indicates that they believed what they were saying, and being first-hand witnesses of Jesus Christ, they would have known if they were making the entire thing up. If it was their own fabrication, you wouldn’t really expect them to be going to the grave for something they knew was a lie.

It is hard to tell where these conversations might start and what type of answers we may have to have. That being said, we need to have a faith that has some roots. Yes, one indeed becomes a Christian by believing that Jesus Christ died for our sins giving us salvation and rose again conquering death. That is the fundamental belief, but there are obvious questions that people may have about each portion of the confession, and we need to be prepared to talk about them.

Coming full circle then, we really cannot just say that we are going to get a simple answer and leave it at that. The world is a confusing place, and there is a lot going on. Even greater than that, we believe in an infinite God. Try as we might, we are never going to comprehend everything about God; our finite minds literally cannot do that. That is not going to stop people from asking questions. Therefore, let’s try to be as clear and concise as we can be, but remember that it is okay to have a Christian worldview that is deep, comprehensive and interconnected. In fact, I would expect nothing else from a worldview that actually describes reality. An overly simple worldview would seem insufficient to me.

Want to Leave a Comment?

I don't allow comments on my website, and you might not feel comfortable emailing me, so I have another anonymous option if you have something you want to say. I won't be able to respond to you obviously, but at least if you have something you want to tell me anonymously, you can do so. Constructive criticism is welcome.

Exploring the Reason for the Hope That We Have

Be sure to check out my debut eBook Contending for the Christian Worldview: 30 Days of Reflections on Faith, Culture and Apologetics on Amazon or Smashwords.

Take a 30 day journey through the Bible and reflect on what it means to be a Christian in modern society. This devotional will encourage you to consider the reason for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.